Violence by Intimates

Transcription

1 U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics Factbook Violence by Intimates Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends Intimates committed fewer murders in 1995 and 1996 than in any other year since Between 1976 and 1996, for persons murdered by intimates, the number of male victims fell an average 5% per year, and the number of female victims went down an average 1%. Note: Intimates include spouses, ex-spouses, common-law spouses, same sex partners, boyfriends, and girlfriends.

2 U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics Violence by Intimates Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends By Lawrence A. Greenfeld BJS Deputy Director Michael R. Rand Chief, Victimization Statistics Diane Craven, Ph.D. Patsy A. Klaus Craig A. Perkins Cheryl Ringel Greg Warchol, Ph.D. BJS Statisticians Cathy Maston BJS Statistical Assistant and James Alan Fox, Ph.D. Dean and Professor, Northeastern University BJS Visiting Fellow NCJ March 1998

3 U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D. Director The following BJS staff wrote or verified this report: Lawrence A. Greenfeld, Michael R. Rand, Diane Craven, Ph.D., Patsy A. Klaus, Craig A. Perkins, Cheryl Ringel, Greg Warchol, Ph.D., and Cathy Maston. James Alan Fox, Ph.D., BJS Visiting Fellow, wrote the analysis of trends of murder by intimates, using data that he had prepared from the Supplementary Homicide Reports. Tom Hester and Priscilla Middleton created and edited the report. Yvonne Boston and Jayne Robinson, under the supervision of Marilyn Marbrook, prepared the report for final printing. Many people made valuable contributions to this report, by providing data, reviewing early drafts, and providing suggestions or comments. The authors express their appreciation to these people who include: Kathleen Creighton, chief of Crime Surveys Branch, and other staff at the U.S. Bureau of the Census Victoria Major and other staff members of the Criminal Justice Information Services Branch of the FBI Members of the Department of Justice Working Group on Domestic Violence Statistics led by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Noël Brennan Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Director, and staff of the National Center for Injury Prevention in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This report and other reports and data are available from the BJS Internet Web site: All of the data analyzed in this report may be obtained from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data at the University of Michigan, Access to the archive may be achieved through the BJS Web site or directly at In addition, Professor Michael Maltz, Ph.D., a BJS Visiting Fellow from the University of Illinois, gave helpful guidance. ii Violence by Intimates

4 Foreword Revised 5/29/98 In a joint effort by the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, a comprehensive review is under way of the information available to Federal decisionmakers about domestic violence and possible needs for the government to undertake enhanced or improved surveillance for statistical data about violence between intimates. At the Department of Justice this effort is being coordinated by Noël Brennan, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, by Dr. Mark Rosenberg, Director, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. This report prepared by the Bureau of Justice Statistics presents a summary of the statistical information about violence committed against intimates that is currently available and is based on information gathered from victims, law enforcement agencies, hospital emergency departments, and those convicted of crimes against intimates. For the purposes of this study, intimates were defined as those with whom the offender had a relationship as a current or former spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend. The kinds of violent crimes examined ranged from murder to simple assault. I am particularly pleased that this valuable report represents the efforts of both BJS staff and Professor James Alan Fox of Northeastern University, a BJS Visiting Fellow. In addition, the FBI provided valuable support to this effort by supplying updated Supplementary Homicide Report data in a very timely fashion. Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D. Director Violence by Intimates iii

5 Highlights This report is a compilation of statistical data maintained by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on violence between people who have an intimate relationship spouses, exspouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and former boyfriends and girlfriends. The violent offenses encompass crimes such as murder, rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Intimate violence predominantly affects women as victims. Violence by an intimate accounts for about 21% of the violent crime experienced by women and about 2% of the violence sustained by males. Lethal In 1996 just over 1,800 murders were attributable to intimates; nearly 3 out of 4 of these had a female victim. In 1976 there were nearly 3,000 victims of intimate murder. The decline over the past two decades was larger for spouse killings, compared to the killings of other intimates. The percentage of female murder victims killed by intimates has remained at about 30% since There has been a sharp decrease in the rate of intimate murder of men, especially black men. The number of intimate murders with guns has declined. However, in 1996, 65% of all intimate murders were committed with a firearm. There is some evidence of a slight increase in the rate of white females killed by a boyfriend. Nonlethal The number of female victims of intimate violence has been declining. In 1996 women experienced an estimated 840,000 rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault victimizations at the hands of an intimate, down from 1.1 million in Intimate violence against men did not vary significantly from 1992 to In 1996 men were victims of about 150,000 violent crimes committed by an intimate. Women age experience the highest per capita rates of intimate violence. Reporting to the police About half of the incidents of intimate violence experienced by women are reported to the police; black women are more likely than women of other races to report such victimizations to the police. The most common reasons given by victims for not contacting the police were that they considered the incident a private or personal matter, they feared retaliation, or they felt the police would not be able to do anything about the incident. Police response According to victims, about 1 in 5 incidents reported to the police resulted in an arrest at the scene. Presence of children Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under the age of 12. About 40% of imprisoned intimate offenders report that one or more children under age 18 resided with them at some time before the offenders entered prison. Treatment of injuries About 1 in 10 women victimized by a violent intimate sought professional medical treatment. About half of victims of intimate violence report a physical injury; about 1 in 5 injured female victims of intimate violence sought professional medical treatment. Hospital emergency department data show women are about 84% of those seeking hospital treatment for an intentional injury caused by an intimate assailant. About half these injured intimate victims were treated for bruises or similar trauma. Violence by Intimates v

6 About half of those treated had sustained injuries to the head and face. Incarcerated offenders Those who committed a violent crime against an intimate represent about 25% of convicted violent offenders in local jails and about 7% of violent offenders in State prisons. 3 in 4 offenders serving time in local jails for intimate violence had been convicted of assault; just over 40% of such offenders in State prisons had been convicted of murder. The criminal justice system has extensive prior contact with those convicted of intimate violence. Among those in jail 78% have a prior conviction history, though not necessarily for intimate violence. 4 in 10 jail inmates convicted of a violent crime against an intimate had a criminal justice status at the time of the crime: about 20% were on probation, 9% were under a restraining order, and just under 10% were on parole, pretrial release, or other status. More than half of both prison and jail inmates serving time for violence against an intimate had been using drugs or alcohol or both at the time of the incident for which they were incarcerated. The average prison sentence for those who victimized a spouse or other intimate appears similar to the average sentences for victimizing strangers or acquaintances. Prisoners who had assaulted their spouse, however, received longer sentences than offenders convicted of assault against other categories of victims. vi Violence by Intimates

7 Introduction How we measure the incidence of intimate violence Estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicate that in 1996 there were about a million rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, aggravated assaults, and simple assaults in which the victim and offender had an intimate relationship. Intimate relationships include spouses, ex-spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and former boyfriends and girlfriends. More than 8 in 10 of these violent crimes involved a female victim. National Crime Victimization Survey The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is one of two statistical series maintained by the Department of Justice to learn about the extent to which crime is occurring. The NCVS, which gathers data on criminal victimization from a national sample of household respondents, provides annual estimates of crimes experienced by the public without regard to whether a law enforcement agency was called about the crime. Initiated in 1972, the NCVS was designed to complement what is known about crimes reported to local law enforcement agencies under the FBI s annual compilation known as the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The NCVS gathers information about crime and its consequences from a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents age 12 or older about any crimes they may have experienced. For personal contact crimes the survey determines who the perpetrator was. Asking the victim about his/her relationship to the offender is critical to determining whether the crime occurred between intimates. In the latter half of the 1980's, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), together with the Committee on Law and Justice of the American Statistical Association, sought to improve the NCVS components to enhance the measurement of crimes including rape, sexual assault, and intimate and family violence. The new questions and revised procedures were phased in from January 1992 through June 1993 in half the sampled households. Since July 1993 the redesigned methods have been used for the entire national sample. Based on the half-sample, BJS determined that the new questionnaire would produce substantially higher estimated counts of incidents of intimate violence than the old questionnaire. The old questionnaire resulted in estimates of a half million incidents of intimate violence, compared to an estimate of nearly a million incidents with the new questionnaire. Such a difference demonstrated the increased ability of the NCVS to capture information on hard-to-measure crimes. Uniform Crime Reporting Program The Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) of the FBI provides another opportunity to examine the issue of intimate violence. The summary-based component of the UCR, launched 70 years ago, gathers aggregate data on eight categories of crime from law enforcement agencies nationwide. The UCR does not, however, provide the detail necessary to identify violent crimes involving intimates. Two other incident-based components of the UCR, the National Incident-Based Reporting Program (NIBRS) and the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), provide rich detail on the victim-offender relationship in violent crimes recorded by police agencies. National Incident-Based Reporting Program NIBRS represents the next generation of crime data from law enforcement agencies. Rather than being restricted to a group of 8 Index crimes that the summary-based program uses, NIBRS obtains information on 57 types of crimes. The information collected on each violent crime incident includes victim-offender demographics, victim-offender relationship, time and place of occurrence, weapon use, and victim injuries. As of the end of 1997, jurisdictions certified by the FBI as capable of reporting incident-based data in the required format account for just over 7% of the U.S. population (about 19 Violence by Intimates vii

8 Revised 5/29/98 million Americans) and just over 6% of all Index crimes (murders, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts). In those States with certified NIBRS systems, about 50% of the population is now covered by NIBRS reporting to the FBI. BJS is currently funding preliminary studies of NIBRS data and their utility for improving our knowledge of violence with special regard for such concerns as intimate violence, family violence, and domestic violence. Supplementary Homicide Reports The SHR is another component of the UCR program. Under SHR, incident-level homicide data from local law enforcement agencies have been collected annually since On average, the SHR obtains detailed information on about 92% of the homicides in the United States, including victim and offender demographics, victim-offender relationship, weapon use, and circumstances surrounding the homicide. The SHR reports received from law enforcement agencies describe the characteristics of perpetrators in an average of about 70% of all cases compiled at the national level. However, individual jurisdictions vary in the percentage of cases in which the perpetrator is either unknown or not described. Study of Injured Victims of Violence Another source for information on intimate violence is a special collection of hospital emergency department data during The BJS Study of Injured Victims of Violence obtained data on intentional injuries brought to the attention of hospital personnel. These data are part of a larger program carried out by the Consumer Product Safety Commission known as the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), which involves a national sample of hospitals where emergency department staff are asked to record information on patients. The BJS study sought information on intentional injury victims, including victim demographics, type of injury, type of weapon, place of occurrence, victimoffender relationship, and case disposition. The NEISS data reveal that a quarter of the 1.4 million intentional injuries treated in emergency departments resulted from violence between intimates. Surveys of jail and prison inmates BJS also conducts national surveys of persons confined in local jails and State and Federal prisons. These nationally representative surveys are the principal source of information on those serving time following a conviction: their backgrounds, their prior criminal histories, and the circumstances surrounding the offense for which they had been incarcerated. Both jail and prison surveys obtain from violent offenders details about the offender s relationship to the victim and how the crime was carried out. How we count violent victimizations of intimates Variations in reported numbers Sometimes estimates in the annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reports differ from those in BJS topical reports based on special analyses of data. A major reason for these differences is the treatment of series victimizations. Variations in defining the victim-offender relationship The data series used in this report share the objective of measuring the extent to which victims and offenders know each other prior to the criminal incident. This is an important distinction not simply for law enforcement purposes but, more significantly, for considering the types of interventions most likely to help reduce the incidence of the problem and its consequences for victims. Generally, all of the data collection programs used in this study obtain information on those violent offenses which affect spouses, ex-spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends. While victimizations arising in same sex relationships are explicitly recognized in the FBI collection programs, none of the series excludes such criminal incidents, which are viii Violence by Intimates

9 Revised 5/29/98 categorized as crimes against boyfriends or girlfriends. Crimes committed against former boyfriends and girlfriends are not separately reported in any of the series but are combined with those victims with current relationships of this type, probably because of the difficulty of establishing whether such a relationship had been terminated prior to the incident. Appendix 1 (pages 34-36) offers the details of how the relationship variables in each data series were classified in this study to create the general category of intimate violence. Series victimizations These victimizations in the NCVS are six or more incidents similar in nature and for which the victim is unable to furnish details of each incident separately. Information on only the most recent incident in the series is collected by the survey. These crimes are problematic because it remains unclear how or whether these victimizations should be combined with the majority of crime incidents that are separately reported. BJS continues to study how these types of victimizations should be handled in our published estimates. As a result, series victimizations are excluded from the victimization estimates published in the annual BJS reports on the NCVS. However, series victimizations are included for some special analyses, counted as 1 victimization to represent all the incidents in the series. This is done when repeat victimization is an important aspect of the subject being analyzed, as it is, for example, in domestic violence. For this reason, estimates published in reports on domestic violence have included series victimizations, and therefore differ from estimates published in the annual NCVS reports. Generally, series victimizations represent about 6-7% of all violent victimizations measured by the NCVS, although variation exists across types of crime and characteristics of victims: Average annual Violent crime victimizations Number Percent Rape/Sexual assault Number Percent Robbery Number Percent Aggravated assault Number Percent Simple assault Number Percent Nonseries Series Total 10,137, % 434, % 1,227, % 2,230, % 6,245, % Intimate violence, , % 27, % 36, % 117, % 499, % 10,817, % 461, % 1,264, % 2,347, % 6,744, % Non-series Series Total Female victims 88.5% 11.5% 100% Male victims Violence by Intimates ix

10 Contents Foreword Highlights Introduction iii v vii Trends in violence against intimates 1 What have been the trends in: Violent victimization of intimates? Intimate murder? Characteristics of victims and incidents of intimate violence 11 Who has the highest rates of victimization by an intimate? Where and when does intimate violence occur? Responses to intimate violence 17 How often do victims of intimate violence: Defend themselves in attacks? Call the police for assistance? Seek assistance from victim service agencies? How often are victims injured in intimate violence? Profile of convicted intimate offenders 23 How many are incarcerated for intimate violence? What is the criminal history of convicted intimate offenders? Please note that the following pages in this report are blank: iv, x, xii, 2, 12, 18, 24, 30, 32, and 36. The Acrobat file skips these blanks. What role do drugs and alcohol play in intimate violence? Appendix 1: Defining the victim-offender relationship 31 Appendix 2: Data for graphical figures 35 Violence by Intimates xi

11 Trends in violence against intimates More than 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend occur each year, and about 85% of the victims are women. The number of female victims has been declining in recent years. Source: National Crime Victimization Survey, In 1996 there were about 2,000 murders attributable to intimates, down substantially from the nearly 3,000 murders recorded two decades ago. Decreases in intimate murders have occurred among men, among blacks (both male and female), and for murders involving firearms. White females murdered by a nonmarital intimate represent the only category of victims to have experienced a small increase between 1976 and Intimate murder now accounts for about 9% of the murders which occur nationwide. Source: Supplementary Homicide Reports, Violence by Intimates 1

12 Trends in violence against intimates On average each year from 1992 to 1996, there were more than 960,000 violent victimizations of women age 12 or older by an intimate (a current or former spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend). The estimated number of violent victimizations of women by intimates declined from 1993 to 1996; the number of such victimizations of men did not vary significantly from 1992 to Note: Violent victimizations include murder, rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault. Intimates include current and former spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends. On average each year from 1992 to 1996, about 8 in 1,000 women and 1 in 1,000 men age 12 or older experienced a violent victimization inflicted by a current or former spouse, girlfriend, or boyfriend. The rate of violent victimization of women by an intimate declined from 1993 to Violence by Intimates 3

13 Although less likely than males to experience violent crime overall, females are 5 to 8 times more likely than males to be victimized by an intimate. From 1992 to 1996 victimization by an intimate accounted for about 21% of the violence experienced by females. It accounted for about 2% of the violent crime sustained by males. Overall violent victimization rates of both women and men declined from 1993 to For female victims of violence, strangers and friends or acquaintances rather than intimates were responsible for the highest rates of crime. Intimate violence accounts for about a fifth of all violence against females. The two categories of violence by friends and acquaintances and violence by strangers are each over a third of the victimizations. Violence by relatives other than intimates are less than a 10th of all violence that women, age 12 or older, experience. Note: Violent victimizations include murder, rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault. Intimates include current and former spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends. 4 Violence by Intimates

14 Analysis of trends in intimate murder, by James Alan Fox, Ph.D., BJS Visiting Fellow The number, percentage, and per capita rate* of murders involving spouses, ex-spouses, or other intimates have declined over the past two decades. The number of intimates killed has dropped from nearly 3,000 per year and 13.6% of all homicides in 1976 to fewer than 2,000 and 8.8% of all homicides in In 1996 the number of intimate murders was 36% lower than in The number of spouse murders, the largest component of intimate murder, fell 52%. *For a presentation of rates, see pages 7 to 9. Female murder victims are substantially more likely than male murder victims to have been killed by an intimate. For , 18.9% of women victims were murdered by husbands, 1.4% by ex-husbands, and 9.4% by nonmarital partners (with an undetermined victimoffender relationship in 27.7% of the cases). Over the same period, 3.7% of male victims were killed by wives, 0.2% by ex-wives, and 2.0% by nonmarital partners (with an undetermined victim-offender relationship in 34.3% of the cases). Note: Analysis in this section is based on murders and nonnegligent manslaughters included in the Supplementary Homicide Reports. All percentages are based on the total number of murders, regardless of whether the perpetrator was known or unknown. Intimates include spouses, ex-spouses, common law spouses, same sex partners, boyfriends, and girlfriends. Violence by Intimates 5

15 Since 1976 nearly 52,000 men and women have been murdered by those with whom they shared an intimate relationship. Intimate murders accounted for 30% of all female murders and 6% of all male murders. Of the 32,580 spouses who were murder victims between 1976 and 1996, about 6 in 10 were women. Murders of ex-spouses accounted for about 1 out of every 200 murders that occurred nationwide during the two decades. About 1 out of every 25 intimate murder victims were ex-spouses. About two-thirds of the exspouse murder victims were women. A third of all intimate murders involved boyfriends and girlfriends. As with murders of spouses and ex-spouses, about two-thirds of these victims were women. The distribution of categories of murderers was similar for the male and female victims of intimate murder between 1976 and 1996: During the two decades 20,311 men were intimate murder victims 62% killed by wives, 4% by ex-wives, and 34% by nonmarital partners such as girlfriends. During the two decades 31,260 women were intimate murder victims 64% killed by husbands, 5% by ex-husbands, and 32% by nonmarital partners such as boyfriends. 6 Violence by Intimates

16 Over the last two decades intimate murder rates dropped far more rapidly among blacks than among whites. 15 In 1976 the per capita rate of intimate murders among blacks was nearly 11 times that among whites; in 1996 the black rate was just over 4 times higher than the white rate. From 1976 to 1996 the number of murders of black spouses, ex-spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends decreased from 14 per 100,000 blacks age to just under 4 per 100,000. The murder rate decreased an average of 6% each year. Intimate murder rates for whites during the same years decreased by an annual average of 2%. The rate declined from about 1.3 intimate murders per 100,000 whites age to 0.85 murders per 100, Since 1976 the sharpest decrease in per capita rates of intimate murder has been among black male victims. In 1976 the per capita rate of intimate murder of black men was nearly 19 times higher than that of white men. The rate among black females that year was 7 times higher than the rate among white females. In 1996 the black male rate was 8 times that of white males, and the black female rate was 3 times higher than the white female rate. During the 20-year period after 1976, per capita rates of intimate murder declined an annual average of 8% among black males, 5% among black females, 4% among white males, and 1% among white females. Violence by Intimates 7

17 Revised 5/29/98 The decline in the rate of intimate murder among black husbands/exhusbands has been greater than for any other category of intimate murder victims. *Rates are based on the following segments of the population for each race: married and divorced for spouse/ex-spouse rates and never married and widowed for boyfriend/girlfriend rates. From 1976 to 1996 the per capita murder rate of black husbands and former husbands declined an average of 10% a year. Between 1976 and 1989 more black men were killed by their wives than black women were killed by their husbands. After 1990 the order was reversed, and the murder rate among black wives and ex-wives was higher than that among black husbands and ex-husbands. Only one category of intimate murder victims, white girlfriends, has increased over the past two decades. In 1976 there were 1.69 murders of white women (shown as girlfriends) killed by their boyfriends or other nonmarital intimates per 100,000 unmarried white women age in the U.S. resident population. In 1996 the intimate murder rate for white girlfriends was 1.97 per 100,000. The average annual percentage changes in the rates of intimate murder between 1976 and 1996, classified by victim-offender relationship, were as follows: Victims White Black Husbands/ ex-husbands -5% -10% Boyfriends -3-7 Wives/ex-wives -2-6 Girlfriends Violence by Intimates

18 The number of intimate murders has declined or remained fairly stable for all sex/race relationship groups except for white females murdered by nonmarital partners. The incidence of intimate murder of white women by their boyfriend or other nonmarital intimate has increased. Over the number of never-married white women ages nearly doubled. Over the same period the number of intimate murders of victims of this age, race, sex, and marital background slightly more than doubled, resulting in a small increase in the per capita rate of murder. That is, while the number of such victims increased, unlike the case for other victim groups, the rate of murder has not changed greatly. Year Murders of white females (ages 20-44) by boyfriends or other nonmarital intimates Population of never married or widowed white women, ages Rate of murder per 100,000 white women ,329, ,821, ,239, ,712, ,014, ,507, ,999, ,415, ,782, ,862, ,056, ,294, ,442, ,610, ,742, ,051, ,174, ,161, ,361, ,133, ,133, Among murder victims for every age group, females are much more likely than males to have been murdered by an intimate. For victims from age 30 to 49, intimates had committed over 4 in every 10 murders of women. About 1 in 10 murders of men of similar age were by intimates. The difference between men and women was the largest in the 18-to-24 age bracket: Intimate offenders were responsible for the deaths of 2.5% of the male murder victims but 28.5% of the female victims. Violence by Intimates 9

19 The female-to-male gender ratio has been climbing for both white and black victims of intimate murder. When intimate murder occurs, increasingly it is the female rather than the male who is the victim. Because rates of intimate murder have declined faster among male than female victims, the ratio of female-tomale victims of intimate murder has risen among both whites and blacks. Prior to the mid-1980's, fewer than two white females were murdered by intimate partners for every white male; by the mid-1990's, this ratio surpassed three white females for every white male. Among blacks the gender ratio was below 1.0 prior to the mid-1980's, as fewer black females than black males were murdered by intimate partners; by the mid-1990's, the ratio reached 1.5 black female victims for every black male. Race-specific trends in the gender ratio have remained parallel over the past two decades, both having doubled over this period. Among the nearly 52,000 men and women murdered by an intimate between 1976 and 1996, 65% were killed with a firearm. However, firearms accounted for a smaller share of intimate murders in 1996, about 61%, than they did in 1976 (71%). Over the two decades more than 33,500 persons were murdered by a current or former spouse or by a current boyfriend, girlfriend, or other intimate using a firearm. In 1996 just over 1,100 people were murdered by intimates wielding a firearm, a thousand fewer than in The decrease in the number of intimate murders between 1976 and 1996 is primarily attributable to the substantial drop in the number of such murders committed with a firearm an average decline of 3% annually. The number of intimate murders committed by means other than a firearm, by contrast, has remained nearly constant over the period. 10 Violence by Intimates

20 Characteristics of victims and of incidents of intimate violence Rates of nonlethal intimate violence are highest among black women, women age 16 to 24, women in households in the lowest incomes categories, and women residing in urban areas. About 3 out of 4 women experiencing violence at the hands of an intimate report the offense occurred at or near their own home. Half report that it occurred between 6 pm and midnight. About a third of female victims of intimate violence experienced such violence more than once during the 6 months preceding their interview. Source: National Crime Victimization Survey, National Incident-Based Reporting System, 1995 Violence by Intimates 11